My new cookbook

From Aliisa:

I have a box that I keep all the recipes I print out from those wonderful blogs and recipezaar.com. Everytime I need one of my recipes, I have to go sift through all of the sheets to find the one I want. This was ok, in the begining but now I have so many to look through. So I have decided to make my own cookbook. In the past, I have made cookbooks but I get tired of writing them all in...it takes so long! This time I decided to use sheet protectors and dividers and put them all in a 3 ring binder.

As you can see, I have purchased all my supplies and now all I have to do is assemble it. Im hoping to have it done next week. I like the idea of the sheet protectors because I can pull a recipe out, use it and if it gets stuff on it, I can wipe it off and place it back into the binder.

Im very excited about this idea.

My pepper purchase

From Aliisa:

Today I went to the grocery store and as I walked around I noticed a large rack of marked down veggies. I was very excited to find bags of bell peppers that were in good shape. I ended up with 30 bell peppers for $.22 cents each...now that is a bargain!!!

I diced a bunch of them to freeze and I cut alot for strips to freeze and then I gave 5 of the large ones that were in pretty good shape to my friend for stuffed peppers.

Such a pretty site...green, yellow and orange bell peppers!!

Boosting your metabolism

From Aliisa:

About a week ago, I went to a small seminar at my church given by a personal trainer. She is a member of our church and knew that not all of us could afford a personal trainer so she decided to generously give her time. A couple of the things I learned:

Boosting your metabolism:
Eat broccoli and oatmeal...its harder for the body to digest so it burns more calories.
Use cayenne pepper, its boosts the metabolism because it raises the internal body temperature and it races through the blood stream speeding up your metabolism.

Weight training will boost your metabolism (not 2-5 lbs but more than that)

The Wii games are a form of exercise.....whoohoo!!

Definately works for me!!

Giveaway

From Aliisa:

Erin over at $5dinners has 100 coupons for free cans of swanson chicken to 10 people. So head over there and register to win. She will announce the winners after the superbowl!!

And for more chances to win Mommy Snacks is giving away the same prize so head over there and register for that one too!!

Last nights dinner

From Aliisa:

Last night I made the brown rice and lentil casserole and it was really good. Even my daughter loved it!! My husband and I did decide to change the recipe a bit next time by adding either speghetti sauce or tomato sauce to it. It just seemed to need that I think.

So here is the recipe, I recommend it highly for an easy, healthy and inexpensive meal.

Brown Rice and Lentil Casserole

Serves 6-8

Ingredients
3 cups broth (chicken or vegetable)
3/4 cup lentils
1/2 cup brown rice
3/4 cup chopped onion
1 teaspoon italian seasoning
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder (I use more)
1 cup grated cheese (cheddar or a blend is preferable)

Directions
1Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
2Mix all ingredients except the cheese in a baking dish (I use an 11 x 7).
3Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour 10 minutes.
4Then remove the foil, add the cheese, and bake for an additional 20 minutes. (I would put the foil back on, my cheese came out a little too dark)

Enjoy!!

Giveaway

From Aliisa:

Check out the grocery cart challenge for this wonderful giveaway. Gayle is giving away a Keurig single cup brewing coffee system with 4 boxes of their K-cups (coffee pods.)

So head on over there and register to win!!

My chicken experience

From Aliisa:

I recently bought bone in chicken breasts for 10lbs for $10. I spent $20 to get 20lbs. I brought it home and opened it all up. Total, I had 20 chicken breasts. I cut off the breasts and packaged them 4 breasts per bag. So just from that, I got 5 meals worth. I then dumped all the bones and rib meat into a big stock pot and boiled them for many hours adding carrots onion and celery to it for a great flavor. After I deboned it all, I had 3lbs of boiled chicken that is great for soups or any kind of casserole. So I ended up with 8 meals worth of chicken and 27 cups of wonderful chicken broth.

Needless to say, I was very happy